Treatment With Camera Notes Write Up (City Canvas).

 All camera work and shot types are in brackets...

City Canvas is a short documentary, which focuses on people perceptions on street art/graffiti. While some people see it as art and a way to express them selves, others see it as kindles acts of vandalism. The documentary hopes to delve into the unknown world of a Liverpool street art and tackle people's perception of the art form.

Liverpool, the former Capital Of Culture, is renowned for its street art(express with long shots and pans of the city). Even the most prolific artists like Bansky and Sick Boi (show work with long tracks of the graffiti and pans across the walls / long shots) have been said to use the city of Liverpool as they canvas(photos to create a montage).  Our documentary intends to guide the viewer around Liverpool street art and challenging misconceptions as the story progresses. (Use lots of freehand shots of the street and especially street art on the walls, mid / close ups)

The film will start off with a montage of graffiti (using jpeg photos of the graffiti and street art), from the sublime works of Bansky and other talented street artist, to the ridiculous works of vandals. The intro will showcase both sides of graffiti (important show camera up and less important work show down long shot), the good and bad in a certain extent.   While the montage plays through, as well as an upbeat sound track we will have the thoughts and opinions of local residents to see what they think. Is it art or is it vandalism?  We intend to set up a vox pop interview style in the location where Bansky iconic Rat portrait once stood. This was classed as one of Liverpool's famous landmarks.

The documentary then slightly shifts focus, as we delve deeper into the unknown. We follow Kieron from local organization Zap Graffiti (set up interview in studio mid shot of subject matter ad static camera) for the day as he shares the difficulties he has faced in expressing his emotion and artist flare through this art form (lots of cut away sots of the studio and shots of the artists close up paint canisters and tracks of the walls freehand).  As well as been quite a stylistic and modern film will also be quite personal as we get a real insight to the man's life and the troubles he has faced. Although after endless phone calls and emails sent to numerous street artists it’s hard to find someone who is willing to share their story. At this moment in time no one has got back to us.

When researching we came across a business called Zap Graffiti who run events to promote graffiti as a positive art form. Each weekend they run workshops in Liverpool to help develop the skills of upcoming graffiti artist. (Standard camera set up in the studio, framing to the right subject matter mid shot, and background to the left deep focus of graffiti and art) The story of Zap Graffiti will be a great way to carry our documentary as it shows the positive side of street art, instead of vandalism the street artist have a place to go to express them selves.  Even local business are getting on board and hiring people from Zap Graffiti to design window displays. Although seen as a positive is this company just producing the next wave of vandals or the next wave of artist?

X-Games: The Movie

The x-games documentary reports on the extreme sports and sometimes daredevil stunts that the games brings with it. Through these it follows six extreme sports stars as they prepare for and then compete in the 2008 Summer X-Games in Los Angeles. 

The reason I have chosen this to look at is the way the documentary film sets up interviews. Again the backgrounds have been considered and the position of the subject matter. I like the focus leaving a lot for the Viewer to take in but not to much that it takes the attention of the subject matter. I also like the way that they go from the standard camera set ups to nice cut away shots of the games with the audio of the nterview running over the top of the film.      

The Bridge

    

The documentary of the golden gate bridge appropriately named 'The Bridge' shows a years filming of the bridge itself cut up into some peoples personal stories about suicides that occurred there and the effect that they had on other peoples lives. The crew filmed the bridge for a year capturing close to 50 suicide attempts or successes and having seen the people jump were able to contact the families for interviews for the aftermath. Incredibly there was a survivor who had jumped from the bridge and in his interview explains  “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfix-able was totally fixable except for having just jumped".

The reason I have chosen this documentary to look at is because of the way and style it was filmed. Although much of the documentary was footage of the bridge from a long way away shot in wide angle to make sure the crew didn't miss anything this shot as show above was nicely framed and camera work such as pans and tilts were really taken into consideration with the piece. The cinematography was beautifully composed and real detail was taken into account when shooting the people on the bridge or the wide angle shot itself. This has made me realize that when setting up a interview there is much more than just the subject matter there. Although he/she may be the focal point of the piece much detail for the background and shot type has to be taken into consideration wither it be the shot type or where the subject matter is placed in frame to really emphasize the style and approach we as filmmakers are trying to put across to the audience. I will look at the background for each of the shots I do for the interviews within my presentation with more detail as this could emphasize the point we are tying to make.       

Eric's Secrets

The first thing we notice about the documentary is that it is a portrait film about the life of the subject matter Eric. Eric in terms of narrative art tells us what sort of person Eric is and pulls us into his life story also reflecting someone with knowledge and by using still images (like the one above) that have either been filmed or just put in like a jpeg while editing reflects the history of his life. This becomes significant as they bring people to life such as his wife. Although she isn't alive anymore the audience can relate to the photographs Eric has of her and himself and almost acts as a character within the documentary. The soundtrack helps emphasize this point with a ambient sentimental type tone. 

What I like about the documentary is how they used the photos (shown above) to emphasize meaning as well as cutting back to the interview set ups of Eric so the audience is taken from current time with the interview with Eric to the past and history of his life. The interviews are set up with Eric as the main subject matter with himself in his most comfortable state in his house. What I also really like about it is the way it starts. It doesn't jump straight in to his life's history, instead it is a recording of Eric just being himself talking to the interviewer. He talks about his dinner and his joy of cooking. Not only does this give the audience a sense of what type or person he is but it allows them to relate to him. The with the still images it explains his past and history. With my documentary I would like to shoot JPEG images as well as film as this could give another dimension to it showing what the people we interview have done in the past as well as photos of the street art could give a strong impact upon the audience as a whole.      

Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul

The short Documentary (Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul) explores the lives of children in Kabul that through all the poverty and violence associated with war around the city a simple activity like skateboarding can bring happiness and a brighter future for the lives of the children. Interviews with the children expresses real emotion to the audience and as a whole, the documentary gives a sense of the eastern culture mixing with the western. People can really relate to this as its something the audience quite possibly sees everyday. The mix of the poverty of war and the calmness of skateboard related activity is really what gives this documentary such power and emotional impact. The documentary is also a campaigning film which promotes the work of a charity from and alternative view point.

The way the documentary is shot is what I was really interested in. Now I know what idea we are going with for the Liverpool documentary I wanted to find a piece that would give me an idea of an urban feel to the piece. 'Skateistan' really shows the stylistic elements well such as going from close up shots to extreme wide angles of the derelict city. Nearly every shot I can see has been thought about in great detail, from the framing of the shot in cinematography to how the shot will be delivered to the audience wither it be a tracking, zoom, focus pull or static close/mid/long shot. The shot above I chose as these are the types of shot I want to get when in Liverpool. The reason being that the background is really detailed as well as a mid shot tracking the foreground subject matters in focus, the city to the right shows the poverty of the piece but the subject matters are showing the audience why they are happy doing the activity. Set ups like this will give a really urban street view of the whole documentary and could change the audiences perception of the piece.

Influences and Ideas about camera Work from Documentaries Studied and Found

Over the course of the week I have looked at a few influences and pieces to get a feel for the street art idea we are now doing. From the lecture two documentaries have come up that I really want to explore due to the stylistic elements really being what myself as the camera operator and having spoken with the director what we both want it to look like. These were...

Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul
D-Orlando Von Einsiedek / 2010 / 10''
http://vimeo.com/15841377
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGoRXuHiVFo

and

Eric's Secrets
D: Lucia Ashmore / 3''
http://www.4docs.org.uk/films/show/4/Erics+Secrets
http://vimeo.com/5143120

Having been given these I wanted to watch a few more documentaries that would really give me a clear idea of the type of camera work and stylistic elements I could put into our own documentary. I wanted to focus particularly on the set ups of the interviews as well as the cinematography of the shots throughout some documentaries. I ended up finding two that really helped me and these were...

The Bridge
Eric Steel / 90'' / 2006
https://www2.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Bridge/70059028?sod=search-autocomplete

and

X Games: The Movie
Steve Lawrence / 91'' / 2009
https://www2.netflix.com/WiMovie/X_Games_The_Movie/70124926?sod=search-autocomplete
 

Feedback From The Pitches

Feedback and Group Meeting After

Overall the lectures thought both of the ideas were strong and that both had met the brief as well as agreeing that the job roles set were good and that we could work well as a team together. Both chose the record idea over the graffiti idea for the main reason that they thought the narrative was a lot more structured and that graffiti had been done in documentaries before, the problem they had with the record idea however was that there was no physical place to film and would have to find objects and interesting off shots that would relate to the story. However everyone in the class thought otherwise and preferred the creativeness of the graffiti idea. Having taken on board the lectures comments it was clear that have we work quickly on the structure of the graffiti idea and choose a definite path to follow it could be successful.

 The main narrative we had for the graffiti idea was about... 'Is it art, or is it vandalism'?, the lectures did think this had been covered so having met with the group after we decided to go down the path of more a celebration of street art in Liverpool.